Jazz, brass, composition, and other things music related.

Or rather, 9 Warning Signs of an Artist. While it’s generally better (pedagogically) to talk about what to do, rather than what not to do, this page has nine things that are signs of an amateur. Here are three of the warning signs, with a couple thoughts of my own.

1) Amateur Artists wait for Inspiration

You’ve got to set a work schedule and stick to it, regardless of whether or not you feel like doing it.

2.) Amateur Artists work until something else comes up

While the author is mostly referring to your time spent practicing/composing/painting/etc., I would also add that “amateur” artists also seem to feel that you can drop a gig commitment if a better one comes up. That’s not a sign of a profession, in spite of the fact that sometimes professionals seem to think this is cool.

3.) Amateur Artists are constantly changing their focus

While an amateur tends to change their style or medium as the mood strikes them, a professional artist knows that a “jack-of-all-trades is a master of none”.

I would add that as a musician, being a “jack of all trades” has allowed me to be successful precisely because I’m able to do so many different things, albeit in the field of music. I’ve been able to do this, however, because I’ve spent time working on mastering my skills in a couple of areas (trombone playing and composing) and then building off of those abilities to branch off into related things (conducting, music administration, etc.).

9.) Amateur Artists isolate themselves from the artist community

This brings up a couple of thoughts. First, professional musicians usually quickly learn how small their community actually is. It’s not hard for a musician to get blackballed from gigs because word can get spread around that such and such a player is difficult to work with or doesn’t follow through on commitments. When you isolate yourself from the rest of your peers, you can miss out on not only the word that’s going around about players you may want to work with (or not), but you also miss out on having your peers help you fix a broken reputation.

The other thought that comes to my mind is they myth of the “loan wolf” teacher who has a pedagogical method they push and build their reputation around. Students become an echo chamber of sorts when they go on and teach similarly, without regard to checking out what other folks are doing and what other fields of pedagogy outside of music are doing. If pedagogy is the science of teaching, then we need to treat our teaching more like a collaboration among other teachers. No one pedagogue has all the correct answers, no matter how distinguished or charismatic.